(a) Field
The present invention generally relates to the field of buildings. More specifically, the invention relates to a wall module for making housing modules that can be transported on site and assembled into a building.
(b) Related Prior Art
Contrarily to most products, houses and other buildings are typically not built in a manufacturing plant, but are built directly on the land where they will be located. In other words, the “manufacturing plant” needs to be moved to the future location of a building. Notwithstanding environmental conditions that may affect both the materials and the labor used for the construction, government regulated construction workers compensation enormously increase the labor portion of the construction costs. Moreover, if a house or building needs to be built in a remote location, labor cost is even higher because construction workers have to travel to the construction site.
As a solution for these high on-site labor costs, many manufacturers have started manufacturing houses and small buildings in a production plant. Whether built in large or in small modules (as small as a wall portion or as large as a whole house), these manufactured houses and buildings modules are transported on site where their final assembly and finishing takes place. Although it may be desirable to manufacture as large housing modules as possible, the difficulty lies with the transportation of such large modules. Indeed, during transportation, the modules are subject to deformation, due to vibrations or to the own deformation of the carrier means. These deformations and vibrations prevent the completion of the interior finishing of the house or building since wall and molding joints crack, windows are subject to breakage and cabinet panels chafe against each other. Consequently, it is typical that in-plant manufactured housing modules do not comprise their interior finishing, which has to be done on site and which is therefore more expensive.
There is therefore a need for a structure for a housing module that allows an increased number of operations to be completed in a manufacturing plant before shipping of the housing module on site.